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American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

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Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#301

Post by lotusmars »

sega_sai wrote: post #210

It's a weird article. I think this idea of 'Russian math' is very nebulous, and is probably used as marketing tool nowadays by some schools abroad. I have graduated from one of the top physics/maths high schools in Russia, and yes we had great math education there, but that was an outlier. Outside a handful of schools the math education is pretty dismal. And even in the good math schools there are different ways of t…

> What definitely exists in Russia (or at least some big cities) is a system of free after-school classe

I've been studying in a "respected" Soviet / early post-Soviet school.

These classes were super elitist and had a huge disconnect in their level from what you were taught in regular classes.

I was a straight A student and was shut off very quickly. The problems were enormous in their difficulty and teachers had zero interest in helping or educating you.

Those classes were either for 0,1% genius olympiadniks to be later recruited for Soviet science or defense, or for 0,1% elite (Soviet nomenclature) kids whose parents could afford private education.

Along with other naive/poor kids I was quite quickly reminded that I'm not welcome in the circle.

Just a reminder that Soviet system had very entrenched elites and huge discrepancy in access to education, medicine and goods.

Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#302

Post by handrous »

MattGaiser wrote: post #287
damagednoob wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Essentially large part of education falls onto the shoulder of parents, which is natural. Have to disagree. A parent can't be simultaneously up to speed on Math, English, a 2nd language, Biology, Science, History or any of the other subjects that a child will learn in school School is meant to teach, parents are meant to socialise. Unfortunately that seems to have been swapped around somewhere along the line.

You need to be up on them to the level of a grade school student. That isn't a high level.

They typical standard for a teacher to be certified in a subject at a given grade level, in the US, is to be proficient at least one level higher than that grade level. That ensures you really know the level you're teaching very well, and also have a good understanding of where things are going, so you can offer enrichment to students who need it, and explain motivation behind or direction of certain topics, when asked.

Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#303

Post by 1-6 »

After school programs have been a profitable enterprise in South Korea and China. I think they're still in the growth-phase in the United States with companies like Kumon, Eye Level, and Russian School of Mathematics. Competition to get kids to accel in school is high but it's also increasing the stress of these kids. Parents in South Korea, for example, have stated in numerous survey responses that they would delay having kids (among many things) because of the cost of after-school tuition.

It's a shame because education is viewed as that one normalizer which allows a child from a poor family to make it up to the top through hard work. Wealthy parents are simply gaming the system by putting kids through cram-schools and SAT programs which train you how to read between the lines and fill out Scantrons effectively.

Private tutoring is nothing new but now you're seeing tutoring becoming like a Subway's or a McDonalds franchise.

Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#304

Post by dr-detroit »

civilized wrote: post #300
handrous wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bizarre. Where I am math and English remain king and queen of getting-on-the-schedule. Being "tested subjects" from very early grades, is the main reason. They've all but eliminated recess in elementary, and have reduced hours for things like art & music, to make sure they have plenty of time for them, since school prestige and funding rely heavily on testing well just in those two subjects.

Maybe there's good reason for that? Reading and math are fundamental for a much broader range of occupations than art and music.

Once you reach the level of elite upper class most income is generated by trading art these days

Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#305

Post by anthk »

marco_craveiro wrote: post #109

As a Portuguese citizen, I was not exposed to Russian mathematics during my entire academic career until I entered university. Whilst slightly better than the UK, our educational system was also not brilliant when it came to maths, and we only started to do calculus close to Year 12 (the last year before university). Anyways, my one and only brush with Russian mathematics was as follows - I flunked Integral and Diffe…

Where can I get these books in Spanish?

Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#306

Post by whimsicalism »

whimsicalism wrote: post #155
colechristensen wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here you go: https://www.noodle.com/articles/let-s-get-rid-of-special-edu... Inclusive classrooms raise scores of the lower performing students. That's probably true. It glosses over what it does to people on the other end of the spectrum. As someone from the other end of the spectrum, growing up never having to put any effort, having few or no peers close to my level, and being constantly encouraged by the people ar…

The evidence does not suggest measurable harm for those on the other side of the spectrum from inclusive classrooms. Maybe there is some harm, but if so we haven't been able to devise a test or experiment that can find it.

I'm downvoted, but you can go look at the literature. Jump discontinuity studies for placement, testing comparison, etc. - none of them show the effect that most people on HN want them to show.

Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#307

Post by chucksmash »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #207
Wildgoose wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK citizen here. More specifically, English - the 4 "home" UK nations have different Education systems. I learned Calculus at 14, but I am now 56. We still used log tables when I was at school, calculators were only just being introduced. From what I have seen from my children, our maths education has been seriously dumbed down.

>our maths education has been seriously dumbed down. I hear this complaint form nearly every country. It seems like the system has found this "hack" where if you dumb things down enough, then scores go up across the board, giving the impression that the children are performing better, so the people in charge can meet or exceed their KPIs, and everybody's a "winner". For example, in Romania it was very difficult to ge…

Goodhart's Law: When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#309

Post by please-reread »

lotusmars wrote: post #301
sega_sai wrote: post #210

It's a weird article. I think this idea of 'Russian math' is very nebulous, and is probably used as marketing tool nowadays by some schools abroad. I have graduated from one of the top physics/maths high schools in Russia, and yes we had great math education there, but that was an outlier. Outside a handful of schools the math education is pretty dismal. And even in the good math schools there are different ways of t…

> What definitely exists in Russia (or at least some big cities) is a system of free after-school classe I've been studying in a "respected" Soviet / early post-Soviet school. These classes were super elitist and had a huge disconnect in their level from what you were taught in regular classes. I was a straight A student and was shut off very quickly. The problems were enormous in their difficulty and teachers had ze…

sorry to hear you were not oplymiadniks material :(

Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#310

Post by paganel »

Jach wrote: post #298
paganel wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Romanian here, the "I learned this when I was 9" might have been a slight exaggeration so that your friend could make a point, but as an another anecdata I can say that I distinctly remember one of my first calculus classes while I was in 9th grade (I think I was 15 years old at the time) and our maths teacher trying to explain to us how real numbers are defined and, more importantly, what that definition really mean…

I used to know online a Romanian who had moved to Canada sometime during high school, she made similar points about the slowness of the North American curriculum. I told her about my 11th grade AP Physics C material (which uses calculus) in America and she indicated that in Romania they forced her to learn all that stuff years ago. However she wasn't exactly helpful when I later asked if she could help me with someth…

I'm also not convinced about the superiority of any teaching system (especially now, after I've learned about and read some Ivan Illich), I was just trying to confirm OP's point that the education systems around this part of the world were indeed pushing harder when it came to some maths-related stuff earlier in a kid's "educational cycle", so to speak.

I'm also highly "skeptical of prolonged compulsory education of any quality" but, again, I think that maybe that will steer the discussion into OT territory.

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